The present invention relates generally to techniques that obtain sensing results indicating time variation; for example, such sensing results can be obtained in response to objects that have relative motion, such as objects that move relative to a sensing component and/or an encoding component. More specifically, techniques can respond to objects that have relative motion, providing sensing results that indicate time-varying waveforms that are non-periodic or that have time variation in accordance with one or more sensing patterns.
Various techniques have been proposed for sensing moving objects. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,358,476 describes a fluidic structure with a channel along which is a series of sensing components to obtain information about objects traveling within the channel, such as droplets or other objects carried by fluid. A sensing component includes a set of cells that photosense a range of photon energies that emanate from objects; in a pair of cells that includes a reference cell and a subrange cell, one cell can have a different sensing area or a different coating than the other to obtain signal strengths of the same order. A processor can receive information about objects from the sensing components and use it to obtain spectral information. Similar techniques are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,291,824, 7,386,199, and 7,420,677 and in U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2007/0146704 and 2008/0197272.
It would be advantageous to have improved techniques for obtaining time-varying sensing results, such as in response to moving objects.